Tubbs Leaves Oklahoma, Takes TCU Job

Billy Tubbs said he was ready for a change, so he is leaving Oklahoma after 14 seasons to become basketball coach at Texas Christian.

“You can only get excited about going to Manhattan, Kansas, so many times,” Tubbs said Saturday in Ft. Worth. So he opted for a chance to see Waco, Lubbock and College Station, Tex.

Tubbs, 59, was the Sooners’ winningest basketball coach. He signed a five-year contract to replace Moe Iba, who was fired in March after seven seasons. TCU was 7-20 last season and attendance sagged below 3,000.

A newspaper report in Oklahoma said Charlie Spoonhour, coach at St. Louis and a former Sooner assistant, is a top candidate to replace Tubbs at Oklahoma.

Boxing

Pernell Whitaker retained his World Boxing Council welterweight title with a lopsided 12-round unanimous decision over Santos Cardona of Puerto Rico in Whitaker’s hometown of Norfolk, Va. Whitaker improved to 33-1-1; Cardona fell to 29-4.

On the undercard, welterweight Buddy McGirt scored a one-sided decision over Livingston Bramble.

Tracy Patterson (50-2-1) won a unanimous 12-round decision over Richard Duran (27-2) in Reno and retained his WBC super-bantamweight title.

Track and Field

Carl Lewis ran the anchor leg at Austin, Tex., as the Santa Monica Track Club set a Texas Relays record with the fastest time in the world this year in the 4x100-meter relay--37.89 seconds. Mike Marsh, Leroy Burrell and Floyd Heard built a big lead for Lewis.

Tennis

Top-seeded and defending champion Arantxa Sanchez Vicario beat Martina Navratilova for the first time in 15 tries, 6-4, 6-3, in the semifinals of the Bausch & Lomb tournament on clay at Amelia Island, Fla. The victory sends Sanchez Vicario into today’s final against Gabriela Sabatini, a 6-2, 6-4 winner over Lindsay Davenport.

Top-seeded Pete Sampras beat Henrik Holm, 6-2, 6-1, and second-seeded Michael Chang beat Boris Becker, 7-6 (7-2), 6-2, in semifinal matches to set up an all-American final in the Japan Open at Tokyo.

Kimiko Date, who is seeking her third consecutive Japan Open title, moved into a finals match against Amy Frazier with a victory over Naoko Sawamatu, 6-4, 6-2.

Playing his first singles since taking five months off because of tendinitis in both knees, seventh-seeded Richard Krajicek beat Ronald Agenor, 6-4, 6-2, in the semifinals and will play Carlos Costa for the title in the Conde de Godo ATP tournament at Barcelona.

Costa, seeded sixth, eliminated Alex Corretja, 6-3, 6-3.

Miscellany

Ward Burton turned a fast lap of 124.082 m.p.h. in a Chevrolet Lumina to lead second-day qualifying for today’s Food City 500 stock car race at Bristol (Tenn.) International Raceway.

Justin Hromek won his first major championship and his first Professional Bowlers Assn. singles title by defeating Parker Bohn III, 267-230, in the finals of the $250,000 BPAA U.S. Open at Troy, Mich.

The Italian yacht Brooksfield overtook Yamaha and moved into the lead as the fleet headed north toward Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., on the fifth leg of the Whitbread Round the World Race.

Names in the News

Wayne Messmer, the Chicago Cubs’ field announcer, was shot and seriously wounded while driving on the city’s West Side. . . . The bat Babe Ruth used to hit his 56th home run in 1921 was was sold for $63,000, the highest price ever paid for a bat at auction, according to Sotheby’s.